This era ended in northern Mesopotamia with the defeat and expulsion of the Amorite dominated Babylonians from Assyria by king Adasi circa 1730 BC, and in the south with the Hittite sack of Babylon (c. 1595 BC) which brought new ethnic groups — particularly Kassites — to the forefront in southern Mesopotamia.
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From the 15th century BC onward, the term Amurru is usually applied to the region extending north of Canaan as far as Kadesh on the Orontes.
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Then more Amorite kings were defeated at the waters of Merom by Joshua (Josh. 11:8).
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Some time later, the most powerful rulers in Mesopotamia (immediately preceding the rise of Hammurabi of Babylon) were Shamshi-Adad I and Ishme-Dagan of Assyria, also regarded as Amorites, although Shamshi-Adad I claims decendancy from the native Akkadian king of Assyria Ushpia in the Assyrian King List.
Amorite |
In “Israel’s settlement in Canaan”, he brought much new or newly applied material especially from Babylonian sources to explain Israel’s early residence in Canaan, and a major contribution was the theory that Yahweh (Jehovah) was at an early period an Amorite deity.
It enjoyed independence briefly during the 18th century under the reigns of the Amorite chieftains (ra-bí-an MAR.DÚ) Itur-šarrum, attested on a single seal from Ešnunna, and Sîn-gāmil, son of Sîn-šēmi and a contemporary of Zimri-Lim (ca. 1710–1698 BC short) of Mari and Ḫammu-rapī (ca. 1728–1686 BC short) of Babylon.
Enmerkar furthermore seeks to restore the disrupted linguistic unity of the inhabited regions around Uruk, listed as Shubur, Hamazi, Sumer, Uri-ki (the region around Akkad), and the Martu land.